damaged past history 172?

K

kruiser

Filing Flight Plan
Joined
Oct 20, 2014
Messages
6
Display Name
Display name:
kruiser
Looking at a 1973.....C172 that was heavily damaged 11 years ago (660 hours) and was all rebuilt and engine overhauled. one owner and always hangered. interior in great shape. All log books, Asking $38,000, I want to buy it for a trainer, After that many years and hours can the past damage now be put behind us? thanks.
 
Sure -- it it's been properly repaired and the repairs are properly documented. If you can't tell whether that's true or not yourself, find a mechanic independent from the seller and get him/her to look it over for you.
 
I have a rather general question about this? What types of damage can't be properly repaired? I believe it is still true that if a car frame is severely bent, it often cannot be repaired, even though "frame straighteners" are better than they used to be. What on an airplane can't be repaired or replaced?
 
Pretty much anything can be replaced or repaired but it comes down to economics in the end. I knew a guy who got into a tiff with some bikers at a bar. They came out that night with a couple of crow bars, smashed all the windows, flattened the tires and punched a couple of holes in the fuselage of his 182. He had it fixed within a few weeks. If those dumb bikers had known anything about airplanes and had used those crowbars on the wing leading edges, flaps, prop and such that plane would have been history.
 
Have a good mechanic do a prepurchase inspection and log book review,then enjoy the airplane.
 
JOhnH said:
I have a rather general question about this? What types of damage can't be properly repaired? I believe it is still true that if a car frame is severely bent, it often cannot be repaired, even though "frame straighteners" are better than they used to be. What on an airplane can't
be repaired or replaced?
Click to expand...

With regard to the OP question....the airframe has flown 660 hrs since repair.

Pretty sure they did it right.

To answer your question about bent car frames.....yes they can be straightened within specs that allow the vehicle to function within the original manufacturer design. When it can't be...the frame is replaced if insurance doesnt call it total.
Most cars these days are unibody construction, no frame...just subframe which is cheaper to replace....but unibody cars easier to "total" also.(safer at a cost...but a cost we are willing to pay for)

Parts on airplane that can't be repaired are in the same category....when cost outweighs the value.

Anything can be rebuilt....right guy...enough money...it can be done.
 
JOhnH said:
I have a rather general question about this? What types of damage can't be properly repaired? I believe it is still true that if a car frame is severely bent, it often cannot be repaired, even though "frame straighteners" are better than they used to be. What on an airplane can't be repaired or replaced?
Click to expand...

With riveted aluminum, there is nothing that can't be repaired, you just remove damaged components and replace them with new. It's not that one 'can't' it's that it's cheaper to just replace the entire assembly at some point.

With composites it's a bit trickier, but repairs of sufficient strength can be achieved at a weight penalty.
 
The quality of the repair is critical. I've seen some "repaired" airplanes that I would not fly in. Best to get a good mechanic to do a prebuy.

Dan
 
Dan Thomas said:
The quality of the repair is critical. I've seen some "repaired" airplanes that I would not fly in. Best to get a good mechanic to do a prebuy.

Dan
Click to expand...

Yep, and those planes are out there training new pilots.:yikes:
 
Henning said:
With riveted aluminum, there is nothing that can't be repaired, you just remove damaged components and replace them with new. It's not that one 'can't' it's that it's cheaper to just replace the entire assembly at some point.

With composites it's a bit trickier, but repairs of sufficient strength can be achieved at a weight penalty.
Click to expand...

So that brings up another question - say a pilot makes a serious ker-splat landing and it's enough to bend the gear but not wrinkle the firewall or cause a propstrike. If the gear leg is the only thing damaged, and it's replaced (by a qualified A&P of course), does that qualify as "damage history" on the airplane?

If I blow a tire on landing and replace it, that doesn't count as damage history. Where do you draw the line?
 
Since there is no real definition of 'damage history', it would depend on the views of the person looking. Personally I would not consider just a damaged gear leg 'damage history' in the valuation so long as everything was correct again.
 
My advice, Inspect the rear spar eccentric bushings, see if the are set the same. Then simply go fly it, it should fly hands off and feet on the floor.

Stall it, see if it drops a wing, or stalls straight ahead.

If it doesn't, walk, because it was not repaired correctly.
 
Henning said:
Since there is no real definition of 'damage history', it would depend on the views of the person looking. Personally I would not consider just a damaged gear leg 'damage history' in the valuation so long as everything was correct again.
Click to expand...

Have you ever seen a damaged gear leg that didn't tear out the gear box? I haven't.
 
Ron Levy said:
Sure -- it it's been properly repaired and the repairs are properly documented. If you can't tell whether that's true or not yourself, find a mechanic independent from the seller and get him/her to look it over for you.
Click to expand...

Yes you can, go fly it. you can tell when the 172 is bent. (as in not repaired IAW Cessna repair manual)
 
weirdjim said:
Kinda hard to tweak 3/8" tempered steel without twisting some 50 mil aluminum, isn't it?

Jim
Click to expand...

Well think of this, most early Cessna gear legs are 3/4" steel. The rest of them are a 1" steel bar. I have helped recover a few wrecks that the only thing that wasn't hurt was the gear leg.
 
Cessna has very good structural repair manuals, when they are followed by the letter the aircraft will be good as new or better.

But in reality, a Cessna 100 series seldom gets structural major repairs, because basically the aircraft is a module design. The wings come off, as does the horizontal, vertical, and all the flight controls. So it doesn't require many brain cells to figure out you can buy most undamaged parts from a salvage yard cheaper than trying to manufacture the fixtures required to repair a wing or a horizontal, Vertical, ect.

When completed that way, there isn't a person reading this that could tell if that set of wings came from the factory on this aircraft.

When it isn't written in the maintenance records, you'd have no clue.
 
Tom-D said:
Well think of this, most early Cessna gear legs are 3/4" steel. The rest of them are a 1" steel bar. I have helped recover a few wrecks that the only thing that wasn't hurt was the gear leg.
Click to expand...

Didn't they start putting tubular legs on them in the more recent years? Or am I thinking of something else?
 
When it comes to airplanes all you need to survive the crash is the data plate. everything else can be replaced. Just a matter of money and time.
 
Tarheelpilot said:
When it comes to airplanes all you need to survive the crash is the data plate. everything else can be replaced. Just a matter of money and time.
Click to expand...

Yep, and when it comes to common planes, jigs are all over the place for them. Al had several planes worth of jigs. My buddy in Aus, his mom has a warbirds collection, she built a P-40 from a data plate and a piece of frame.
 
Henning said:
Yep, and when it comes to common planes, jigs are all over the place for them. Al had several planes worth of jigs. My buddy in Aus, his mom has a warbirds collection, she built a P-40 from a data plate and a piece of frame.
Click to expand...

The CAF has had to do that in many cases - you can work miracles with enough volunteer hours and a data plate!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top